


The main attraction

by JauntyHako



Category: Fallout (Video Games)
Genre: F/M, Preston learns to appreciate extremely localised rain, Sanctuary hijinks, all thanks to the magic powers of implied shower sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-07
Updated: 2015-12-07
Packaged: 2018-05-05 12:19:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,261
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5374955
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JauntyHako/pseuds/JauntyHako
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A lot of hard work go into supplying Sanctuary Hills with working showers. So what do you do with the first shower you've taken in two hundred years if not to break it in with your boyfriend.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The main attraction

“Okay, try it now!” Charlotte called over after adjusting a few last screws and brushing off some of the mortar that'd come loose. Over in the bathroom the faucet was turned on.

Water rushed promisingly through pipes on their way to the newly installed showerhead, while Charlotte sat by the system she set up, waiting for Sturges all clear with bated breath. Three days had gone into the latest attempt, one of many before.

“Looks good, pipe's holding stea- FUCKING HELL, SHIT SHIT SHIT. OUCH.”

With a deep sigh Charlotte thumped her head against her end of the new plumbing. At least, judging from Sturges cursing, the heater worked just fine.

 

Sometime between visiting the Institute and blowing it to hell Charlotte had put it into her head to supply Sanctuary Hills with working plumbing. She missed hot showers like nothing else in the world – except for the fizz in Nuka Cola which would be her next project if this one ever got finished – and having one in her rooms at the Institute had brought this particular nostalgia back to the forefront of her mind. She was sick and tired of having to wash with cold water in buckets. Most of her companions didn't really understand her desire for what they compared to a very local rain shower but they indulged her anyway. Only Danse and Mr Vault-Tec had any frame of reference in what she talked about and they both fell over their feet trying to help. Which was fortunate since Charlotte burned through resources so fast she might as well literally burn them. Also her plumbing experience didn't really stretch to the source. She knew how to repair these things, not build them. But Danse was still in contact with Haylen who, after some persuasion, supplied them with Old World construction manuals that no one would miss. The crux there was that most of them were incomplete, only partly legible or sheer impossible to implement with the tools and resources at hand. Sturges and Charlotte were reduced to trial and error in many cases.

“You feeling okay?” she asked while applying cooling salve on Sturges signal red skin.

“I feel like Stu Surprise.” Sturges deadpanned, still dripping wet for lack of dry clothes. They went through those pretty quickly, too.

“Sorry. I really thought I had the problem with the pressure solved.”

“Don't mention it, boss. We'll figure this baby out yet.”

They would, but first they had to replace the pipes that burst during their last trial. Mr Vault-Tec and Sturges got right to it while Charlotte got back to the pumps. She had half a mind to take them apart completely and put them back together again. Or, alternatively, melt them down and build a spaceship instead. Compared to getting hot running water it didn't seem all too hard.

“You okay, General?”

Charlotte acknowledged Preston's presence with a grunt and a wave as she disconnected the pump from the main system. Using only a little violence she ripped away one of the tubes and compared its make with one of the diagrams spread out around her.

“I think it's the Venturi tube that's causing our problems. It's supposed to be narrow at one end and then increase in diameter but we just can't make out the exact measurements. I was sure I had it this time, it looked just like on the picture but, well … don't laugh about Sturges face. I did and he didn't take it well.”

 

Preston chuckled and leaned his rifle against the shack wall before sitting down crosslegged by Charlotte's side. She had some almost white paper on which she scrawled with some scavenged pencils another design for the offending tube, scribbling little mathematical equations on the edges.

Watching Charlotte work was a nice way to spend an afternoon, especially with her running commentary that he was at least seventy percent sure she wasn't aware of. They didn't need to talk but Charlotte would still occasionally rope him into short conversations, typically when she went to retrieve some other doodad that was vital in getting a rain of hot water inside a house. Mr Vault-Tec had praised it as a great and mostly forgotten luxury but Preston wasn't yet sold on the idea. They wouldn't get any cleaner in a rainstorm than using a bucket or taking a bath in the river when the weather allowed it. Like so many things from the Old World it was utterly alien to him. Just like Charlotte could be, on occasion. The way she talked and acted, sometimes with so much wistful memory, sometimes with equally as much condemnation about the time she grew up in, it was confusing at best, horribly foreign at worst. Mama Murphy hit the nail right on the head when she called Charlotte a woman out of time. Realistically there should be no way for Preston and her to make this work, whatever it was they were steering towards. They shouldn't even be able to be friends, as different as their backgrounds were, but somehow they managed just fine.

A big part of that was probably that Charlotte's heart was big enough to hold the entire Commonwealth and then some. She liked to tell him he was just the same as her and he liked to think she was right. And while most of the time her care and kindness took the form of shooting raiders or calming a synth terrified out of their mind or even giving the Brotherhood's people a good talking to, other times her urge to help everyone took strange turns.

“It's gonna be so great, Preston. The purifier works over capacity anyway so half an hour for everyone every morning is totally a thing we can do.”

“Half an hour? Who in their right mind would wash for that long?” he said aghast.

“Oh, you won't talk that way when it's finished. You'll never want to step out of that shower, just you wait. Speaking of which, could you run over to Mr Vault-Tec and see how the ceramic tiles are coming along?”

Preston didn't mind playing errand boy, especially since agreeing earned him a kiss on the cheek.

 

Mr Vault-Tec, who as of yet had refused to give his actual name and seemed rather flattered at the name the settlers had come up with instead, told Preston with not little pride that the tiles were finished and ready to be lain.

“Put the final varnish on just now. That bathroom's gonna shine like a Raymour & Flanigan commercial.”

Preston had only passing knowledge in Old World furnishing brands but Mr Vault-Tec's assessment sounded promising. Then again, everything the old ghoul said sounded like gold sprinkled with diamonds. Charlotte said he'd made the apocalypse sound like a thing to look forward to, for the sheer pleasure of living in one of Vault-Tec's great vaults and Preston saw little incentive to doubt her. These days she put him behind the counter at one of the vendor stalls in the community building they had, the one currently under optimistic construction, and he brought Sanctuary Hills so many caps they had trouble spending them all.

 

He returned to the shack but was stopped halfway there by one of Charlotte's companions. Beating his brain for a name he waited for the man to speak.

“What's she doing in there exactly? I'm hearing something about water cannons, is that true?”

The prospect seemed to delight him.

“No, MacCready.” Preston said after remembering who this particular stray was Charlotte brought home. “Just a little project to allow us more comfort. Supposedly.” he added. As if on cue they heard a triumphant shout echoing through the whole settlement, followed by the sound of rushing water. This time it wasn't interrupted by Sturges' cries of pain.

 

Everyone involved agreed unanimously that Charlotte should have the honour of the first hot shower taken in Sanctuary Hills in over two hundred years. Codsworth arrived with towels and handed them over to Charlotte with the same reverence one usually reserved for religious artifacts. They were white and plushy and Preston did not want to know where they came from but in any event his attention was divided between them and Charlotte who sauntered over to where he stood with a sway in her hips he hadn't seen since they visited the Third Rail in Goodneighbor.

“Hey, handsome.” she said in that deep husky voice that never failed to make him weak in the knees.

“Hey. Don't you want to take your 'shower'?” he asked, trying and likely failing to sound aloof.

“Planning on it. Care to join me?”

Preston would be the first to admit he didn't know the first thing about old world bathroom amenities. But even he could see that she didn't just invite him for a quick splash in the water. He swallowed, flipped off a wolf whistling Cait who caught on quickly to these things and followed Charlotte to The Shower.

 

Once there however he had second thoughts.

“I'm not sure this is a good idea.” he said, eyeing the showerhead, which he'd previously known only as a random thing sticking out of some walls. Charlotte was well underway getting undressed and clicked her tongue at him.

“Now I'm disappointed. Where's that fearless Minuteman I fell in love with?”

Preston laughed.

“All right, I'll give it a try.” Having a naked Charlotte there with him certainly helped.

She stepped under the shower, urging Preston to get rid off his clothes already and began adjusting the faucet. Water came spraying out of the top and if any promises and explanations didn't tide Preston over to the idea of pressurised hot water, the sigh of pure bliss that escaped Charlotte's lips sure did.

“Oh, this is perfect. Quick, come here.” she said, holding her hand out and steadying Preston on the slippery tiles. He needed the help, too, not for any balance problems but for the fact that Charlotte's black skin, darker even than his own, gleamed under the streaming water. Heat rose up to his cheeks brought on partly by the sight before him and partly by the hot water pattering down on him. He took everything back he thought about showers. This was heaven on earth. Cramped muscles loosened under a steady massage ministrated by a thousand warm fingers. He hadn't known he was cold until the water warmed him up.

“God, this is great.” he said, answered with Charlotte chuckling and pulling him close. They stood arm in arm under the shower, hands discovering each other all anew, slick and wet as they were.

“See? Told ya.” she said and for this she deserved to be a little smug. Her hands rested lightly on his waist, thumbs brushing over his hipbones. She blinked at drops of water catching in her eyelashes. Preston leaned forward and kissed them away, followed the trail of water down her cheek, stopped briefly at her lips. He gently worried her bottom lip between his teeth, continued his way downward, along her chin, her throat, the kiss their eliciting a breathless sigh, and a line up her collarbone. Steam rose up around them, immersing the room in fog and making it harder to breathe. Or perhaps that was just him, breath stolen by this amazing woman before him. He'd never know how he got so lucky.

She tilted his chin up and kissed him, lazy and without tongue, while her hands reached behind him and fiddled with something on the counter she had installed. The something turned out to be soap foaming between her fingers. She handed Preston the bar and dragged her hands across his shoulder blades.

“Feel good?” she asked and he hummed in agreement, closing his eyes and relishing in her touch.

Eager to return the favour he coated his own hands with soap and set to work scrubbing the dirt off Charlotte's body, returning her to the clean, unmarred woman he'd first seen helping them against the raiders. Now she was his general, hero of the Wasteland, scourge of the Institute and his girlfriend. She had a few scars more since they first met but so had he and so far she didn't seem to find him any less attractive.

“You know, I think this shower business isn't so bad after all.” Preston sighed before setting on the task to show his love just how appreciative her was of her efforts.

 

 

The shower quickly grew to be the main attraction of Sanctuary Hills. The word spread quickly causing an influx of visitors who politely smiled and nodded at Charlotte's introduction of their settlement while searching for the far-famed shower when they thought she didn't notice. In the end they just put up a sign “Shower that way ←” and left it at that.

Weeks later Charlotte was on the road again, Hancock in tow who'd lamented at length how being away from Sanctuary Hills was not good for his mental disposition. Charlotte told him to suck it up and for the most part that was it.

“You know, it's a miracle you're still so dirty with the number of showers you've taken.” Charlotte said on their first night on the road, both still pristine and healthy, mostly anyway. Hancock frowned at her.

“You mean it's for cleaning yourself?” he said and then stared out into nothing while absent-mindedly cleaning his shotgun. “I think I've been using it wrong.”

“Oh God …”

“What? The water pressure feels really nice on your -”

“I _do not_ want to hear it.”

 


End file.
